Ethical discriminations? Representing the reprehensible

This paper reflects upon the ‘goodness’ or ‘ethics’ of Critical Management/ Critical Organisation Studies (COS) research practices. I argue that academic representations of others entail an ethical responsibility to the researched, a responsibility that COS is, as yet, insufficiently exploring. Reflecting upon my own research with those who have colluded in discrimination and Stanley and Wise’s (1979) research on obscene telephone callers, I explore the nature and limits of responsibility when researching those who have acted reprehensibly. I end by arguing that COS “owe(s) some responsibility to ‘the researched’ of all kinds, whether we morally approve of them or not” (Stanley and Wise 1993:177)

Pathology, power and profits...in paperback

Joel Bakan’s The Corporation is an accessible and engaging critique of the corporation written for a non-specialist, mass audience. It has been published in the UK to coincide with the release of the multi-award-winning documentary of the same name in UK cinemas

A right to respond? Monopolisation of \u27voice\u27 in CMS

This paper explores the power effects of, and possible justifications for, the differential \u27voice\u27 and \u27silence\u27 accorded to academic and non-academic subjects within Critical Management Studies (CMS). I explore these issues through a discussion of the practice of \u27giving voice\u27 to some subjects critiqued in CMS journal articles by providing them with the opportunity to publish a \u27response\u27. I question the justification for extending this right only to academic subjects, and use this example to provoke CMS to question further its institutional orientation to issues of voice and silence in relation to the non-academic research subject

The devil in high heels : drugs, symbolism and Kate Moss

This paper contributes to critical voices on the issue of organisational responses to drugs and employee drug use. It does so by exploring some of the symbolism residing at the heart of organisations&rsquo; relations with drugs and drug taking. Our focus is recent media coverage of, and organisational responses to, the UK tabloid media&rsquo;s expos&eacute; of fashion supermodel Kate Moss&rsquo;s cocaine use. We use this case to explore symbolic relationships between drugs, sex and femininity, and organisation. Through highlighting these symbolic connections we question further the rationality of organisational responses to the &lsquo;spectre&rsquo; of drugs and the issue of employee drug use. We conclude by suggesting that workforce drug testing regimes might be fruitfully seen as mechanisms for scapegoating and sacrifice in order to protect the organizational moral order.<br /

The normalisation of \u27excessive\u27 workforce drug testing?

In \u27The normalization of \u27sensible\u27 recreational drug use\u27 Parker, Williams and Aldridge (2002) present data on illegal drug use by adolescents and young adults in the UK. They argue that it is both widespread and largely socially benign - ie, normal. We contrast this \u27normalisation\u27 thesis with evidence of an increase in the introduction of drug policies - and drug testing - in British organisations. Such policies construct employee drug use as excessive enough to necessitate heightened management vigilance over workers, in order to preserve corporate interests. These contrasting representations of drug use inspire our discussion. We deploy the normal/ excessive couplet to unpick drug taking, to examine organisational drug policies and to comment upon emerging and potential resistance to these policies. Our contribution is to suggest that each of these activities can be understood as simultaneously normal and excessive, in an area where orthodox and critical analyses alike tend to be far more dualistic. <br /

Enchantment in Business Ethics Research

This article draws attention to the importance of enchantment in business ethics research. Starting from a Weberian understanding of disenchantment, as a force that arises through modernity and scientific rationality, we show how rationalist business ethics research has become disenchanted as a consequence of the normalisation of positivist, quantitative methods of inquiry. Such methods absent the relational and lively nature of business ethics research and detract from the ethical meaning that can be generated through research encounters. To address this issue, we draw on the work of political theorist and philosopher, Jane Bennett, using this to show how interpretive qualitative research creates possibilities for enchantment. We identify three opportunities for reenchanting business ethics research related to: (i) moments of novelty or disruption; (ii) deep, meaningful attachments to things studied; and (iii) possibilities for embodied, affective encounters. In conclusion, we suggest that business ethics research needs to recognise and reorient scholarship towards an appreciation of the ethical value of interpretive, qualitative research as a source of potential enchantment

Helping Business Schools Engage with Real Problems: The Contribution of Critical Realism and Systems Thinking

The world faces major problems, not least climate change and the financial crisis, and business schools have been criticised for their failure to help address these issues and, in the case of the financial meltdown, for being causally implicated in it. In this paper we begin by describing the extent of what has been called the rigour/relevance debate. We then diagnose the nature of the problem in terms of historical, structural and contextual mechanisms that initiated and now sustain an inability of business schools to engage with real-world issues. We then propose a combination of measures, which mutually reinforce each other, that are necessary to break into this vicious circle – critical realism as an underpinning philosophy that supports and embodies the next points; holism and transdisciplinarity; multimethodology (mixed-methods research); and a critical and ethical-committed stance. OR and management science have much to contribute in terms of both powerful analytical methods and problem structuring methods

A Right to respond? Monopolisation of 'voice' in CMS

This paper explores the power effects of, and possible justifications for, the differential 'voice' and 'silence' accorded academic and non-academic subjects within Critical Management Studies (CMS). I explore these issues through a discussion of the practice of 'giving voice' to some subjects critiqued in CMS journal articles by providing them with the opportunity to publish a 'response'. I question the justification for extending this right only to academic subjects, and use this example to provoke CMS to question further its institutional orientation to issues of voice and silence in relation to the non-academic research subject.20 page(s

Interpretation — appropriation : (making) an example of labor process theory

In this article, the author explores ethically problematic relations that may be reproduced within a genre of interpretive organizational research: namely, (U.K.) labor process theory (LPT). Although the author endorses LPT&rsquo;s critical and explicitly antioppressive values, he argues that interpretive practices employed by core authors contradict the genre&rsquo;s value base and function to silence and appropriate challenging empirical elements to affirm LPT&rsquo;s valued interpretive schema. The author draws out deeply problematic implications of such appropriation through highlighting parallels between interpretation, appropriation, and colonization. The author ends by considering the nature of, and possibility for, more ethical &ldquo;critical&rdquo; interpretive organizational research

Over the limit : the management of drug and alcohol use

I am concerned in this chapter with the management of drinking and drug taking - particularly as it pertains to the situation in the UK. Intuitively, intoxication would seem to be a direct contrast to the sober rationality and selfmanagement necessary for the correct performance of organisational or societal roles. One might, therefore, expect today's institutions, 'greedy' as they are for the labour power and cultural alignment of employees (Coser, 1974), to demand moderation or abstinence from these subjects. We might look for organisations to function so as to exclude or manage the intoxicated body, discipline it into different forms of behaviour or supplant the irrationality of intoxication with performative rationality and calculability. In the section immediately following this introduction, I will show moves in these directions through the technology of workforce drug and alcohol testing